


Tsukki-kun and His Tamer

by bugs3



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Idk just felt like tsukiyama are the sort of friends who say the weirdest things around each other, M/M, Phineas and Ferb References, Relationship Study, Ukai is the outsider, no beta we die like men, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:02:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27893518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bugs3/pseuds/bugs3
Summary: Coach Ukai ponders the connection between best friends and talking.(Or, Tsukkiyama as weird things my friends have said out of context, with Ukai watching in the background)
Relationships: (only a bit at the end), Takeda Ittetsu/Ukai Keishin, Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 131





	Tsukki-kun and His Tamer

When he was young, Coach Ukai had had a childhood best friend: a bright girl who he had known for nineteen whole years. Her name was Misaki—no suffixes needed. 

Misaki was the assistant manager of his volleyball club, and they were neighbours too. They did practically everything together—walked to school together, walked back together, ate in each other’s homes, did their homework together, and talked. They talked a lot. 

Now, so many years later, Ukai could barely remember most of their conversations. They had had so many. All he remembered was often thinking, “why do we still have stuff to talk about?” Misaki was random and a chatterbox so they covered every topic from volleyball to dendrochronology, yet still had content. For nineteen years of their lives, they talked and talked and talked but they never ran out of things to say.

Ukai thought that was a best friend thing—he could never talk that much to any of his other friends, especially since he was normally so quiet. Now that he was an adult coaching an entire volleyball team, he could see his theory being proved by all the best friends he had met. Especially by two of the first-years—Tsukishima Kei and Yamaguchi Tadashi. 

Those two talked so much it was impressive—especially since Tsukishima barely spoke in any other case. Ukai held a secret respect for Yamaguchi, for being able to stick to a best friend who was mute unless he wanted to be salty. Holding conversations with that kind of a person must be tough, Ukai thought. You’d need a lot to say and enough stamina to say it without getting tired from running your mouth all day. 

Additionally, they talked about the weirdest things—Takeda-sensei had once told him he was tempted to take notes. Maybe they weren’t as weird as they sounded to the coaches and the teachers, since they only ever overheard snippets, completely out of context. But they were still incredibly… _ different.  _

It had become a regular thing for a lot of coaches—the Fukurodani coaches, Nekoma’s assistant coach, and Ukai and Takeda themselves, to overhear random things and then share them with each other over some laughter and beer. 

For example, once, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi had walked into the gym. Yamaguchi burst in first, pushing the door open, but it was Tsukishima who was speaking.

“Don’t cry because I can act well, Yamaguchi,” He said with a sigh, eyeing the shorter with what Tanaka had dubbed the “I-wanna-say-shut-up-Yamaguchi-but-you’re-being-too-cute-so-I-can’t” expression.

“But it was a beautiful impression,” Yamaguchi whimpered, sniffling and _rubbing_ _actual tears_ _out of his eyes._

Another time, Yamaguchi had run to pick up a ball while he was speaking to Tsukishima. 

Coach Nekomata had heard him say, “But Tsukki, since cats have nine lives and humans have one, then it makes ninety-one!”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Yes, it does! I’m in class 4, I can do maths.”

“I’ve been thinking of telling the teacher to move you down a class.” 

A week after, when the team was back in Miyagi, Takeda-sensei reported he heard Tsukishima ask, “How is nine and one ninety-one?”

“Werecats are magic!”

Tsukishima stared at Yamaguchi’s silly little grin for the longest time, until he finally shook his head and deadpanned, “I’m going to ask Itsuka-sensei to move you to class 1.”

An all-time favourite of the two Karasuno teachers was when they had witnessed Tsukishima storm away with long angry strides, hands shoved in pockets and eyes glaring at everything in his line of vision. After him ran Yamaguchi, rushing frantically to catch up. In between pants, Yamaguchi managed to call out once, desperately. 

“But Perry’s a  _ platypus!”  _

There were conspiracy theories about that one.

The most recent one was just a few seconds ago:

“Out of idiot and moron, which would you prefer as a personality trait?”

That one made Ukai’s head whip up involuntarily. A little bit of relief went through him when he saw Tsukishima was reading out of his phone. Though that started a whole new worry: what kinds of things was he even  _ doing  _ on that phone?

Yamaguchi answered genuinely, for whatever reason. “Idiot. Moron sounds meaner to me.”

At the same time, Hinata tried to spike his volleyball into the basket, failing miserably. All the volleyballs bounced out, imbued with the speed of Rolling Thunder™, one smacking Ennoshita in the face and another almost hitting Yamaguchi—but he just barely caught it. Kageyama accidently set one to Hinata on reflex, who spiked on reflex, and hit Tanaka’s foot.

And within seconds, the gym was a loud roar of people shouting at Hinata, people running after Hinata, Hinata shrieking in fear, and balls ricocheting around like they were playing squash instead of volleyball. 

One of them hit Yachi and Shimizu stopped the nonsense with a firm command, quickly making Hinata apologise and everyone disperse. 

“Moron,” Tsukishima scoffed.

Yamaguchi snickered. “That’s mean, Tsukki.”

“Then, idiot.”

Ukai thought it was pretty impressive. Their relationship with each other. It was even something he craved, he thought with embarrassment. Even though he knew that the young had many things to teach the old, he never thought his lesson would come in  _ this  _ topic. 

Takeda sat down on the bench next to Ukai, and immediately, a thousand topics of conversation filled the coach’s mind. But they were juvenile, he thought; stuck in the times when he was only 16 and he  _ needed  _ juvenile thoughts to talk about with Misaki. She wasn’t a very serious or mature person, after all. 

Weren’t adults supposed to talk about news or politics or sport? The only one of those Ukai had talked to Takeda about was sport—about their volleyball team. 

Takeda greeted Ukai with his usual, bright smile, and Ukai nodded and smiled a greeting back. They sat together in silence which, for Ukai, was awkward. But Takeda didn’t seem perturbed by it. He didn’t seem to notice it. 

Tsukishima and Yamaguchi walked by at that moment, on the way to a towel.

As Yamaguchi passed with Tsukishima, he said, “Do you think religion is stupid?”

Tsukishima raised an eyebrow in question.

“Well, and I was talking to Eri-obasan the other day,” Yamaguchi began to elaborate. Tsukishima interrupted him quickly though. 

“Is it going to be painful to hear?”

“It was for me, but I’ll summarise it to keep you from the pain. Eri-obasan said she thought religion was stupid cos it forced to you believe in, worship, and follow some super-guy who you don’t even know exists. Somehow, we got into a super-long debate about it.”

Tsukishima looked at Yamaguchi incredulously. “You  _ survived  _ a  _ debate  _ with Eri-san?”

“Well, I’m atheist, so I guess she was more okay with it,” Yamaguchi shrugged, then chuckled a little. “She still shouted her lungs away, though. By the end, she sounded like Goblet of Fire Dumbledore.”

“Dumbledore is  _ way  _ easier to tolerate than Candace when she talks to Jeremy,” Tsukishima replied in a flat tone. 

“More like ‘Candace when she talks to Stacy about Jeremy,’” Yamaguchi snickered.

Ukai was, to say the least, taken aback by a  _ genuine smile  _ on Tsukishima’s face. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen it before. It was just that the smile was usually a once-in-a-blue-moon thing, but with Yamaguchi, it was as common as Kageyama screaming “Dumbass!” at Hinata.

“It’s like Yamaguchi is a Tsukishima-tamer,” Takeda whispered beside him in a conspiratorial tone. It reminded him of when he and Misaki used to whisper suspiciously and eye a random person all the time so they’d get paranoid for no reason. 

“Not a Tsukishima-tamer,” Ukai replied in the same hushed tone, grinning. “A  _ Tsukki-tamer.” _

Takeda laughed out loud, a sweet and bright sound that was definitely contagious, because Ukai was laughing too, and he laughed even more when Takeda wheezed  _ “Tsukki-tamer!”  _ and Daichi’s muffled snicker gave away his eavesdropping. 

Now  _ that  _ one spread like wildfire among the staff. Most teachers now called Tsukishima “Tsukki-kun” in private. Itsuka-sensei had almost let the cat out of the bag by calling on “Tsukki—SHIMA!  _ TSUKISHIMA!!”  _ with accidental rage, but thankfully, the class just mistook it as her being in a really bad mood.

Ukai was told of all the goings on with “Tsukki-kun and his tamer” by Takeda, since Ukai himself wasn’t a teacher in the school. Apparently, teachers had started beginning conversations with, “So Yamaguchi-kun pulled one of his “Tsukki-whisperer” tricks again…” 

Everyday, Ukai and Takeda would talk for ages—in the gym, in Ukai’s store, in a pub—he’d even been to Takeda’s home. And somehow, in the shortest span of time possible—only  _ two weeks. Two weeks!— _ Ukai had managed to have a crush. 

He thought young love was a young people thing! So why was it haunting  _ him  _ when he was  _ twenty-six, for God’s sake! _

A little voice in his head said that love comes to everyone, no matter the age, but he hated that little voice with vehemence, so he ignored it. 

There was no way Takeda liked him anyway. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I don't actually like this fic, but I feel the only way to improve is to put yourself out there, so here I am. 
> 
> Feedback and constructive criticism is welcome and appreciated, but if you intend to post any rude or harmful comments, I will delete them, and hope that you find a better use for your time.


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